Various examples relate to apparatuses, devices, methods and computer programs for allocating memory. An apparatus comprises interface circuitry, machine-readable instructions, and processor circuitry to execute the machine-readable instructions to process instructions of a software application of a local processing element participating in a partitioned global address space, allocate, upon processing an instruction for allocating memory on a symmetric heap being used across a plurality of processing elements participating in the partitioned global address space, memory on the symmetric heap, wherein, if the instruction for allocating memory indicates that memory is to be allocated with a variable size, the memory allocated on the symmetric heap has a size that is specific for the local processing element.